


coming home

by nicole_writes



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sylvain Gets His Hug in Pt 3, Sylvain Jose Gautier Being Self-Destructive and also Himself, Sylvain Jose Gautier Needs A Hug, Sylvain Jose Gautier's Father's Bad Parenting, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24557158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicole_writes/pseuds/nicole_writes
Summary: “I am alone in a house of ghosts and monsters, he had written.” / a character study in three parts
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dorothea Arnault & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Glenn Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Hilda Valentine Goneril, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 34
Kudos: 57





	1. one - ruin and bone

**Author's Note:**

> It's Sylvain's birthday and I probably should have been nice to him, but instead, I wrote this. 
> 
> Making a note of some warnings which include (but are not entirely limited to): implied/referenced child abuse (by sibling and father), very lightly implied suicide, and explicitly self-destructive behaviour. 
> 
> This started as a one-shot, but when I hit 4 000 words, I reconsidered. The first part is long and covers the Academy Phase, the second part is much shorter and covers the 5-years of war, and the last part is long and covers the War Phase.

_ one - ruin and bone _

* * *

As a child, Sylvain had always considered Fhirdiad his home. He had spent much of his youth there, running about with Felix and Dimitri and Ingrid and Glenn. Fhirdiad had been a place of warmth and happy memories. His mother would smile there, when in the company of the queen or the king or the Duke and Duchess Fraldarius. 

Margravate Gautier never quite felt like home. The house was large and dark and it was always frigid cold. There was always grim news coming from the northern border with Sreng and his father would disappear into his study for days on end if an issue came up. Castle Gautier meant tutors and tiptoeing and etiquette lessons.

It also meant Miklan. 

It meant stealing his mother’s make-up to hide bruises and hoping that the servants would know well enough to keep their mouths shut, lest the Margrave or Margravine find out the truth. It meant locking himself in his room or learning the quickest ways to run from one room to another if Miklan was angry and looking for a fight. 

It meant almost freezing to death in the bottom of a well, only to be saved by a horrified Glenn Fraldarius and a traumatized young Felix. Ingrid and her youngest older brother had been searching for him too, but Glenn just put an arm around Sylvain and kept him away from all the questions. 

Sylvain loved Glenn. He never asked questions and he knew just enough white magic to make the aches go away. That day, he had shoved a bowl of steaming soup, cooked by Ingrid’s brother, into his hands and had stubbornly sat with him until Sylvain had eaten the whole bowl and half of a second one. Glenn made Ingrid and Felix stop staring and sent Ingrid’s brother to retrieve the Margrave and Duke Fraldarius.

“I’ll kill him,” Glenn had promised in the same cool, steely tone that Felix would adopt years later. 

Glenn had only been two years older than Sylvain, but that made him only just over a year younger than Miklan. But, Sylvain loved Glenn. He had no love for Miklan and he certainly didn’t want to send Felix’s older brother in to deal with his messes. 

“No, you can’t,” he had argued. 

Glenn had stared him down. “Then tell me what he does to you so I can teach you to really fight and to deal with him on your own.”

So Glenn taught Sylvain to use an axe because Miklan used a lance. Margrave Gautier had been training both of his sons to wield lances because it was the weapon of a cavalier and a soldier. Glenn used swords mostly, but he pressed an axe into Sylvain’s hands and taught him to use the brute strength of an axe to overwhelm the reach and precision of a lance. He would be in trouble against a sword, but he could break a lance with a cleverly placed blow from an axe. 

Miklan beat the shit out of him the moment that the Fraldarius and Galatea families had left the Margravate. He had broken a training lance over Sylvain’s back and left him curled uselessly on the floor of the Gautier training grounds. Sylvain had contemplated waiting to die there, but his father had stumbled upon him shortly after. 

He expected pity or anger towards his brother. He had not expected the cool gaze of a detached nobleman assessing him. 

“You are the heir of House Gautier. Do not wallow and do not falter. I will not tolerate your failure again.”

Six months later, Sylvain had been out with a young woman in town and had returned late at night. He had walked past his father’s study and caught the sound of a brutal beating. He hadn’t had to look through the cracked door to know that his father was doling out discipline upon Miklan. 

Dinner the next day had been unbearable where his father had eaten calmly at the table while his mother tried to keep a fluttering conversation up with the Margrave and with Sylvain since Miklan had been confined to his room by healers until he was better rested. 

There was a book on Crests and a treaty of government on Sylvain’s desk that night. He burned the book on Crests in his fireplace and wrote to Glenn that night. 

_ I am alone in a house of ghosts and monsters, _ he had written. He expected no reply from Glenn. The Fraldarius heir wasn’t one for sentimental feelings and connections. 

Duke Fraldarius invited Sylvain and the Margravine to Duchy Fraldarius the next week and Sylvain got to leave Margravate Gautier. Duchy Fraldarius was further south than Gautier, so it was warmer, and the company was pleasant. After a week of sparring with Felix and Glenn, Sylvain began to feel a little better. 

Then he had learned of Glenn’s engagement. He supposed it wasn’t entirely impractical. Ingrid was a young, Crest-bearing woman and Glenn was the heir to a rich noble house. When Ingrid had come to visit with her two oldest brothers the next day, she had worn a dress for the first time in a long time and she had blushed when Glenn had taken her hand.    
  
Sylvain suddenly didn’t feel welcome at Duchy Fraldarius as the Duke and Count Galatea negotiated. Duchess Fraldarius and his mother tried to keep the children busy, but there had been an air of somberness over the house for a few days. 

He wrote to Dimitri and the prince gave him an out, welcoming him and all of the others to come to Fhirdiad. On the ride there, Ingrid had chattered on about Pegasus Knights and how much she adored the flying steeds and Sylvain had found himself with a startling amount of patience to discuss the topic, even once Glenn and Felix had long exhausted the subject of conversation. 

Sylvain liked to watch Ingrid wave her hands and point as she told him stories and her hopes about one day becoming a knight herself. Count Galatea’s expression had grown firm, but Sylvain had ignored Ingrid’s father and had asked her about other flying creatures, besides the pegasus, who would make good steeds. 

Glenn had grabbed him by his collar when they made camp for the night on the way to Fhirdiad. “Don’t forget who’s marrying her, Gautier.” The Fraldarius heir’s voice had been flat and more reminiscent of the way that he spoke to Miklan. 

Curiosity had sparked in Sylvain’s stomach at the idea that Glenn, who was the ideal, prominent knight, was jealous of Sylvain’s easy conversations with Ingrid. Ingrid who obviously preferred Glenn and tolerated Sylvain. It made the bitter knot in his own stomach lessen. He loved Glenn, but he never denied the fact that he was jealous of Glenn for many things.

He rode with Felix the next day, talking about Dimitri and the new sword Felix had gotten for his birthday. Glenn had ridden back with Ingrid, but Sylvain never found himself able to escape the scrutiny of Ingrid’s gaze for the rest of the trip. 

Fhirdiad was nice. It was a breath of fresh air to spar with Dimitri, even if the prince’s strikes carried twice as much strength as Glenn’s because at least Dimitri used a lance and Sylvain was able to pick up an axe to notch a single hit before he was soundly defeated. It had grown tiresome getting beaten by both sword-wielding Fraldarius brothers and it wasn’t particularly pleasant to attempt to fight Ingrid. She was quicker than him anyway, so he mostly just continued to lose. But, at least he got a hit in on Dimitri who was brute strength and efficiency, much like someone else Sylvain knew. 

* * *

A year later, Glenn was inducted into the royal order of knights and accompanied the Royal Family to Duscur. Dimitri came back alone save for Dedue, a Duscur boy who was loyal to the death. Felix lashed out and Ingrid withdrew and Sylvain used the opportunity to leave Margravate Gautier.    
  
He couldn’t say anything useful to Felix, so he just let the young Fraldarius heir beat his anger out against Sylvain’s poorly constructed axe and lance posture. 

He visited Galatea and did something that neither the Count or any of Ingrid’s four brothers had succeeded in. He got Ingrid to open her door even if it was just so that she could punch him in the shoulder and then rest her head against his chest while she cried and cried and cried.

The Margrave–Sylvain had long since tired of calling him Father–summoned him home and not even Ingrid’s need for comfort could have the Count convinced to defy his father’s wishes. 

* * *

Sylvain withstood three more of his brother’s attempts on his life before his father finally stepped in. Sylvain was sent out with the Margravine for a day trip into town. He went, happily, engaging his mother in pleasant conversation and showing off his silver tongue by charming four young women for the sheer purpose of drawing a smile out of the woman who had grown tired and more reserved as time went on. She had scolded him endlessly for his flirting, but at least she had smiled. 

By the time they returned to Castle Gautier, Miklan was gone, disowned and removed. His things were gone by three days later, as was the portrait of him that hung in the eastern wing, and Sylvain didn’t see his parents interact for a week after that. His mother wouldn’t even speak to him. 

He took a different girl to bed every night for three weeks until his father called him to his study and backhanded him across the face. The Gautier ring cut his lip and Sylvain tasted blood. He wondered how many times the ring had struck Miklan and he voiced the question stupidly. The Margrave had sent him away, insisting cruelly that he was to clean up his act and spend the next week at a fort near the Sreng border. 

* * *

Margravine Gautier died six weeks after Miklan was disowned. She died of stress-induced illness, his father told the people. Her grief over the betrayal of her eldest son had been her undoing.    
  
Sylvain had seen the blood in his mother’s private quarters. Illness didn’t lead to bloodstains in a bathing chamber that would never truly go away. 

Sylvain’s friends gathered in Margravate Gautier a week later for the funeral. Dimitri did not attend. Rufus was loathe to let the young prince leave Fhirdiad, so his regards came via a letter handed to him by Rodrigue Fraldarius. 

Felix had hugged him once for a very brief amount of time and had told Sylvain that he was never allowed to speak of it again. The lump in his throat would ensure that. Ingrid, on the other hand, had taken his hand the day she arrived and had held it almost the entire time she was visiting. Felix and Ingrid and he sat in his chambers and Sylvain cried and Felix listened and Ingrid held both of their hands. Ingrid had lost her mother when she was small and she had lost a fianc é in Glenn. Felix had lost his brother and his closest companion when Glenn died. Sylvain had lost a friend in Glenn and his mother. 

He didn’t want to think what Miklan was to him. 

Two weeks later, Margrave Gautier tried to enroll Sylvain at the Officer’s Academy, but Sylvain managed to deflect his father for another two years so that he could attend with his friends. He put the diplomacy skills he had been amassing to work and was pleasantly surprised when his father agreed

* * *

The rooms in the dorms of the Officer’s Academy were small and simple and very different from the arched ceilings of the palace in Fhirdiad, or the large windows of the Fraldarius Estate, or the grand presentation of Castle Gautier. 

Sylvain’s room was at the end of the hallway and his neighbour was Dimitri. Felix was on Dimitri’s other side, but Ingrid was at the far end of the hallway, as far away from him as she could be. 

Sylvain was still unpacking on the first night when Ingrid showed up in his room. Apparently Felix was at the training grounds and Dimitri was off with Claude, heir to House Riegan, and Edelgard, the Imperial Princess. Sylvain had broken out a strategy game that he had brought to keep them occupied and it seemed to do the trick. 

Ingrid played with the end of her braid when she had a particularly tough move ahead of her, so Sylvain would move his pieces so that hers were more pressured until she had to make a mistake. Ingrid was smart, but Sylvain had a distinct advantage in years of practice in reading body language. She was annoyed when she lost, but she had thanked him for the distraction anyways.

* * *

Mercedes was tricky. She was elegant and calm and stunningly beautiful, but she seemed just clueless enough to brush off his every attempt at flattery. Sylvain could have sworn that he was in love with her from the moment he met her, but Mercedes was sharper and more insightful than he had bargained for. 

They took tea together in the garden one day and she had called out his wandering eye to where a group of female Golden Deer students were sitting and stealing glances at him with less than coy smiles. 

“You haven’t got the slightest idea what sincerity is, do you?” Mercedes asked calmly, as easily as if she had just asked his favourite colour. 

Sylvain stared at her. 

“All these girls who follow you around, parading your adoration, and yet you throw them away like they don’t even have feelings.”

Mercedes was right. She knew it, he knew it, and he had no room to argue. Sylvain sipped his tea and flashed her a winning smile. 

“I don’t know,” he tried anyways, “I like to think that they’ve worn themselves out from the pleasantness of my company. Wouldn’t want anyone to get bored, would I?”

Mercedes nibbled on a cookie and studied him. She looked into his soul in a way no one ever had before. Maybe it was because she had a few years on him and had grown up in a church, but there was something so deceptively assuring and non-threatening about her. Sylvain had seen her magic in action and he knew she had studied at the School of Sorcery with Annette. 

“One day you’ll run out of stories to spin and places to run away to,” she said calmly and Sylvain wondered if she knew he had hidden in both Ashe and Dimitri’s rooms at separate times that week. 

* * *

Felix locked himself in his room when his father arrived at Garreg Mach. When Sylvain heard the news, he had wanted to do the same. Instead, he had tilted his chin, flattened his frown into a neutral expression, and looked to the Professor for orders. 

Ashe and Annette and Mercedes were all watching him curiously. Even Dedue and Dimitri seemed intrigued to observe Sylvain’s reaction to the news that Duke Fraldarius had brought south the monastery from Margravate Gautier. Only Felix and Ingrid understood the true gravity of the situation and Felix was hidden away, so it was only Ingrid. 

Ingrid, who twisted her fingers through his under the table in the classroom as the Professor instructed and created a plan of action. Ingrid, who refused to relent her grip on his hand the more and more uncomfortable Sylvain got through the planning process. Ingrid, who, despite his protests, brought two trays of food to his room that night and ate with him in private. 

Ingrid quizzed him for his Cavalier certification exam and made him challenge her for her Pegasus Knight certification exam. Sylvain was pretty sure he would have failed the exam, but when he walked into it, Ingrid’s voice echoed through his head and guided him through each of the questions. 

Ferdinand passed the exam at the same time as Sylvain and had gone on a long-winded tangent to express his delight at being certified in a “truly noble” class. Sylvain had looked at the mare that he’d ridden to pass the test and the training lance in his hand and had felt distinctly sick to his stomach. 

* * *

He would have been perfectly content sitting alone in his room once they returned to the monastery, but that’s where people would be looking for him, so he avoided the dorms and instead sequestered himself in the Knight’s Hall. 

So far, Dedue was the only one who had found him and hadn’t bothered to try and make Sylvain talk. He had simply recommended that he clean the blood from his face and hands and stop clutching the shaft of the Lance of Ruin hard enough to break. Sylvain had replied that he didn’t have Dimitri’s penchant for breaking weapons, but he had followed the rest of Dedue’s advice. 

He poked the fire poker into the dying embers of the fire and inhaled a breath of hot air as the log turned over. For a minute, the poker felt like a weapon in his hand and he vividly recalled the way his lance had cut through his brother’s flesh. 

Miklan’s dying snarl echoed in his brain almost loud enough to drown out the person calling his name, but Sylvain looked back and saw Hilda Valentine Goneril standing at the edge of the training pit in the hall. She had a hand on her hip and her head was cocked to the side. 

“Hello Hilda,” he greeted, trying to keep his tone pleasant. 

“You don’t have to be nice, Sylvain,” she pointed out flatly, striding towards him. 

He slid over on the couch to make room for her, but Hilda leaned in, sitting on the arm of the couch and draping her legs over his lap. Sylvain placed a hand on her calf and massaged it gently. The horrible, self-destructive part of his brain wanted him to pull her in and ruin their friendship, but he managed to keep just enough hold on himself to refrain from doing so. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Claude said you’d be here,” she answered, avoiding the question.

“Why would he care?”

“He doesn’t really,” she agreed. “But, apparently Dimitri cares and Claude thought sending me here might be a better idea than throwing you to the Lions.”

“Mmm,” Sylvain conceded. “Are you here to comfort me?”

Hilda shifted, leaning forward so that she fell into his lap. She pressed his shoulders back against the back of the couch and straddled him. Her breath was warm on his face and she smelled pleasant. She traced a finger down his throat and Sylvain’s heart thudded in his chest. 

“I was thinking more of a distraction. You and I are both good at this part, aren’t we?”

He kissed her. She kissed him back, practically buzzing against him, but then she pulled back, something unreadable glimmering in her bright pink eyes. 

“What now?” she asked him breathily.

Sylvain thought about kissing her and carrying her back to his room, but he liked Hilda. He didn’t really want to run her off because she was being playful and distracting him from bad things going on. 

He kept one hand on her back, keeping her balance, but he dropped his other hand to his side. “Not that I don’t love a good distraction,” he began. 

Hilda laughed and kissed him again, sliding his hand to her waist with one of her own hands. “You and me both.”

He leaned back and grinned at her. “I rather think you could destroy me right now, Miss Goneril,” Sylvain said, changing tactics. 

Hilda removed his hands from her waist and climbed off his lap, her mood shifting. “I like you, Sylvain. Definitely not like this, but it’s no good to see you spiralling.” She straightened her hair and her blouse and skirt before giving him a last, somewhat shrewd look. “It wouldn’t do for anyone to be destroyed right now. Ingrid and Felix are looking for you.”

Hilda left then, leaving Sylvain to stare at smouldering embers and feel guilty about not talking to his childhood friends. 

* * *

Dorothea sat down next to him at the feast and plucked the goblet from his hand, taking a drink. She wrinkled her nose at the taste of the wine and handed it back to him. Sylvain sipped from it and waited for her to say something. 

“If Claude is going to smuggle wine in, he should have at least made it good wine,” Dorothea said dryly. 

Sylvain swirled the wine in the goblet. “It’s a Derdriu wine. I think he’s obligated to only drink this wine, if anything.

“I suppose you don’t grow enough grapes to make wine way up north, do you?”

Sylvain thought about the heavy blankets of snow that had a tendency of cutting harvest season short back at the Margravate. “No,” he agreed. “We’re much more of a hard liquor type of place.”

Dorothea swiped his cup again and drank. He wasn’t going to tell her off for doing it, so she knew she could get away with it. Dorothea was good enough company. She wasn’t a member of his own house, celebrating their victory at the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, and she was awfully pretty. 

“Any interest in sticking around longer?” he asked. 

Dorothea raised an eyebrow. “Are you propositioning me?”

He laughed. “From one like-minded individual to another, we should get out of here before Ferdinand has the gall to try and approach you again.”

She leaned in close enough that he could smell her perfume. It was something floral and oddly familiar. She pressed her lips practically against his ear when she spoke. 

“Oh Sylvain, you know me so well.” She leaned back, smirking at him, and Sylvain caught the briefest moment where her eyes strayed to something over his shoulder. 

He glanced back and saw Ingrid watching the two of them with an unreadable expression on her face. He made eye contact with her and raised an eyebrow. Ingrid looked down and guilt prickled suddenly in his stomach. 

“Shall we?” Dorothea asked, standing up from the table. 

He followed her out of the dining hall towards the fishing pond. Dorothea headed out onto the pier and adjusted her skirt before sitting down on the end, dangling her feet above the water. Sylvain sat next to her. His heels were only about an inch above the water, so he was careful not to dunk his feet. 

“Sometimes I don’t know how you nobles do it,” Dorothea said. “You deal with all the pomp and circumstance with a stupid, vapid smile on your face even if you actively hate each other.”

Sylvain was a bit surprised at her sudden bitterness, but he knew well enough that Dorothea didn’t have an excellent opinion on the nobility, especially those from the Empire. “It takes practice,” he replied calmly. 

She snorted a laugh. “Right. It’s still strange to see the House Leaders getting along. One petty disagreement and we could be launched right into a war.”

Sylvain thought about Dimitri. His friend was undeniably different from how he had been before the Tragedy of Duscur, but he had seemed much more put together and composed in the time they had been at the Officer’s Academy. 

“I don’t know,” he said, “it feels like we’re all some big, mostly messed up family here.”

Dorothea tilted her head towards him. “Got a lot of experience with messed up families?”

He paused, feeling uncomfortable and she dropped her gaze away, biting her lip. 

“Sorry, that’s probably not a good subject.”

He shrugged. “My brother is dead.”

“I meant your mother,” she mumbled. Sylvain tensed and Dorothea touched his knee gently. “Ingrid told me.”

“Oh,” he mumbled blankly.

Dorothea looked guilty. “I just wanted to know about Glenn and somehow we talked about a lot more than that. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Sylvain said quickly. “It’s not exactly a well-kept secret, after all. Besides, it’s nice to know that Ingrid has some friends who are both female and not Felix, Dimitri, or myself.” He thought about what she had said. “So how much do you know about Glenn?”

“He was Felix’s brother, Ingrid’s fiancé, and yours and Dimitri’s friend. And he died in Duscur.”

“Yeah,” Sylvain agreed. “He taught me to wield an axe and he was a hell of a brother.” He smiled faintly. “Only time I really felt like I was at home was when all of us and our crazinesses were in Fhirdiad.”

“What about here? You’re all, mostly, here now,” Dorothea pointed out.

Sylvain slid his hand into hers and squeezed it. “Yeah,” he agreed. “This is pretty close.”

* * *

Remire Village burned around him. There was blood on his lance and he couldn’t hear anything over the buzzing in his ears. A terrified villager sprinted past him and Sylvain stared at the burning home. 

A woman sat on the floor, rocking back and forth while holding the body of the young man that Sylvain had cut down. He had been sick, with whatever Remire illness had taken much of the village, but the way the woman held him was the way a mother held her son. 

Sylvain felt sick. 

Someone grabbed his elbow and pulled him away from the house. He blinked and found himself staring into Felix’s face. His friend’s expression was set grimly as he started hauling Sylvain away from the house. Annette slipped past them and moved into the house to try and draw the mother away from the flames. 

Sylvain let Felix guide him away from the burning homes without resistance. They stopped when the reached the outskirts of the village where refugees were gathering with the Church forces that had accompanied the Blue Lions on their mission. 

Sylvain glanced back at the burning village. “I killed her son,” he said slowly. His knuckles clenched around the Lance of Ruin and he could practically feel the Crest of Gautier burning in his blood. 

“If not you, someone else would have. She would have been dead by then anyway. You saved her life,” Felix replied pointedly. 

Sylvain dimly thought about his mother and her reaction to Miklan’s banishment. His stomach turned and he lunged for the nearest bushes. He emptied his lunch into the bushes and his body kept heaving until there was nothing to come up. 

A warm hand brushed the back of his neck, pushing his hair out of his face and Sylvain closed his eyes. He shuddered faintly and felt slim fingers run through his hair over his scalp, trying to reassure him. When his body finally finished convulsing, he cracked open his eyes to see Ingrid kneeling beside him. 

Her green eyes were wide with worry and Sylvain felt a dull ache in his stomach. He wiped at his mouth and accepted the water she offered him. 

“You okay?” she whispered gently. 

They were crouched in the bushes where no one would see them and the selfish, vain part of Sylvain appreciated Ingrid’s attempts to remain incognito. 

“Is there a word for a parent who outlives their child?” he asked suddenly. 

Ingrid blinked and her hand stilled where it was still combing through his hair. “Sylvain,” she murmured, sounding sad. 

He pulled away and stood up. There were calls from the centre of the formation for people to regroup and begin heading out. He strode out of the bushes and walked away from the burned-out homes that the refugees of Remire village could no longer call home. 

* * *

For all his posturing and flirting and wooing, Sylvain hated Ethereal Moon. The White Heron Cup had had Flayn barely beat out Dorothea to win certification in the Dancer Class for the Blue Lions and it meant that all the Blue Lions were dancing on their toes around each other as hidden affections bubbled. 

Sylvain didn’t invite anyone to the ball. He was invited by seven different girls and he turned them all down with a cruel smile and a playful wink for good measure. One took it well and rebounded to ask after Ferdinand, but the other six didn’t. Apparently two of them went straight to Ingrid, complaining about him so then Sylvain had dealt with a very angry Ingrid for an entire week. 

At the ball, he danced with Mercedes and Dorothea and even stole a dance with Hilda, though she made it a point to step on his toes as often as possible, just to spite him. Lysithea gave him one dance and Annette gave him two. Flayn turned him down, wary of Seteth, and Marianne looked at him like he was crazy when he asked. 

When he finally escaped the dance floor, he looked around for Felix, only to see that Annette had somehow managed to wrangle the grumpy Fraldarius heir onto the dancefloor. Dimitri was dancing with Mercedes and Ingrid was nowhere to be seen. 

Sylvain grabbed a goblet of wine from the teacher’s table and slipped out of the hall, heading in the direction of the Cathedral. He walked partway on to the bridge and leaned against the railing, looking up and admiring the night sky above him. 

He wasn’t alone for long as he soon heard the click of a woman’s heels against the stone. He turned his head and saw Ingrid wobbling towards him on her shoes. She had wobbled all night, but Dorothea had been firm in insisting that she wear the heels because they apparently matched her dress uniform. 

“Hey Ing,” he greeted. 

She walked up next to him and leaned against the railing, inhaling deeply. “It’s stuffy in there,” she mumbled. 

“Yeah,” Sylvain agreed and sipped from his stolen goblet. 

He tipped it towards Ingrid and she raised an eyebrow at him, but she took it and sipped from it anyways. 

They stood in silence for a minute, just staring out over the bridge at the sky and the land that stretched beneath it. 

“Shouldn’t you be in there dancing with every girl you lay your eyes on?” Ingrid asked quietly after a pause. 

Sylvain chuckled. “Funnily enough, I’m not sure there are many more girls who would want to dance with me. I may be running out of hearts to steal.”

“Good!” Ingrid exclaimed. ‘Maybe that means I can stop cleaning up after you.”

He leaned away from her, pressing a hand to his heart. “I’m hurt, Ing, you don’t like dealing with all of my problems?” 

His response came out more jaded than he had intended for it to and Ingrid turned her curious green eyes on him. Whatever makeup Annette and Mercedes had forced her into had accentuated her natural cheekbones and outlined her vivid eyes. Sylvain couldn’t look away from them, even if he desperately wanted to curl up and hide all of his vulnerabilities from her. 

“Sylvain,” she began gently. 

He finally broke eye contact and looked up at the twinkling stars. “Never thought I’d be the guy without a girl to meet at the Goddess Tower tonight,” he joked, trying to deflect. 

Ingrid’s hand curled on his forearm and he knew he wasn’t getting out of this conversation so easily. “Sylvain,” she repeated, stern this time. 

He bit the inside of his cheek and didn’t reply. He glanced at her again which was almost a mistake. She was closer now and he could see the sparkle of eye makeup on her eyelids and a pale pink lipstick on her lips that gave her just the tiniest bit of complimentary colour and easily drew his gaze. 

When he didn’t say anything, she seemed to finally get the hint, dropping his arm and leaning back a tiny bit. Sylvain’s heart thudded as she moved away and he told himself it was a good thing. 

Ingrid was Ingrid. The horrible, self-deprecating part of him wanted to ruin her and ruin everything they had as friends for the sake of one kiss, but the fifteen-year-old boy who had listened to her talk about Pegasus Knights for hours clung stubbornly to the way things were and he let her move away. 

He was already ruined. There was no need to destroy her too.

* * *

It was almost three in the morning when Sylvain entered the dining hall. To his surprise, something smelled burnt. He followed the scent, curiously, to the kitchen. A tray of blackened blobs that were probably supposed to be cookies sat on one of the counters and Sylvain heard a faint sniff. 

He followed the noise and saw Annette sitting on the kitchen floor with her arms around her knees, looking absolutely miserable. 

“Annette?” he questioned.

She jolted at the sound of his voice and her head snapped up towards him. “Oh! Uh, hi, Sylvain.”

He glanced at the burnt cookies. “Were you trying to bake?”

Annette shrugged half-heartedly. “I’m nowhere near as good as Mercedes or Ashe, but I wanted to do something for the Professor.” She tucked her chin against her chest and sighed. “My father has been gone for most of my life, but I have my mom, so I don’t really know what it’s like to  _ really _ lose a parent, but I figured that cookies would never hurt anyone, would they?”

Sylvain fell silent. He remembered the cooks at Castle Gautier trying to tempt him out of his room with treats after his mother died. He remembered bribing Ingrid to open her door with food after Glenn had died. 

Annette’s head snapped up. “Oh! No, Sylvain, I’m so sorry!” she gushed suddenly. 

He faked a smile, shaking her head. “Nah, it’s alright Annette. My mom died years ago. It’s not fresh.”

She bit her lip, but she didn’t look like she was about to burst into tears again. Sylvain tapped a knuckle on the counter that held Annette’s very burnt cookies. 

“We should get rid of these and get to bed,” he suggested. 

Annette shifted on the floor. “I can do it. I made the mess.”

Sylvain picked up the tray of blackened cookies and headed for the bin where the kitchen staff discarded leftover food and scraps. “We’ll go faster if we do it together,” he pointed out. “That way we’ll both get back to bed faster and we’ll be sharper for our axe training tomorrow.”

Annette laughed faintly and stood up, brushing off her skirt. “Okay,” she relented. 

They worked quietly for a few minutes, cleaning up the mess Annette had made in the kitchen. Finally, once the last bowl was washed, dried, and put away, she turned to him. 

“You didn’t have to do that, Sylvain.”

“I was here,” he said casually. “Besides, maybe I can use this as leverage to get you to come to tea with me tomorrow,” he added, his tone almost straying to his falsified flirtatious one. 

Annette shook her head. “I’m studying with Lysithea tomorrow after we have the axe seminar.”

Sylvain flashed her a grin. “What a coincidence, I’ve got to brush up on my Reason. I’ll bring the treats if you bring the tea.”

* * *

The Professor’s hair turned green. _Dimitri broke_. Edelgard marched on Garreg Mach. The Professor and Archbishop disappeared. The war began. 

* * *

Sylvain sat on his bed in his dorm room and stared at the half-packed room around him. The monastery was being evacuated and most of the Kingdom natives were leaving the next day. He and Felix would be travelling north together towards their homes. 

Sylvain didn’t want to leave the monastery. For the first time in a long time, this was a place that felt like home. He didn’t want to go back to Gautier and it’s cold walls and empty house and what would inevitably be discussions of war and slaughter and more violence. 

Someone knocked on the doorframe and he looked up. Ingrid was standing there, still wearing bits of her Pegasus Knight armour and looking as exhausted as he felt. Sylvain didn’t say anything, but he slid over on his bed so that she could sit next to him. She walked over and practically collapsed next to him. 

“I don’t want to go,” he said quietly. 

Ingrid took his hand, twining their fingers together. Neither of them wanted to talk about the way that Felix and Dimitri had blown up at each other after the battle. Something in Dimitri was very broken and losing the Professor seemed only to have aggravated that part and Felix never knew when to let sleeping beasts slumber. 

“We’ll be okay,” she said firmly.

Sylvain tipped his head so it rested against hers. “There’s nothing in that house for me, Ingrid.”

“You’ll be okay,” she corrected herself, but her voice cracked. 

Sylvain’s eyes burned with tears and he shut his eyes, focusing on Ingrid’s hand in his. “How do we keep going from here?”

“With our heads up and blades sharp,” she said quietly, quoting something Glenn had said to them a long time ago. 

“Right,” he agreed weakly. “Keep fighting until they’re nothing but ruin and bone.”

_ Ruin and bone _ , he thought to himself.  _ I’ve been nothing but since the day I was born _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to finish up Sylvgrid week with the MUCH LIGHTER "of new intentions" and then I'll get the rest of this posted.


	2. two - war and change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"In war, there was no home. There was your base and your objective and the distance that stretched between them."_ / two - five years of war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sylvgrid week ended yesterday and I guess I'm not used to not posting every day now...
> 
> Anyways, this has been done for a couple days so no harm. Part 3 will take a little longer as it of course depends on the time I have to write it. 
> 
> Big shoutout to the Sylvgrid Discord and all my enablers over there <3

_two - war and change_

* * *

In war, there was no home. There was your base and your objective and the distance that stretched between them. There were no playful dances and drinks shared with good stories or tests to stay up late studying for. There was war correspondence and treaty negotiations and entirely too much blood. 

At first, Sylvain stayed at Margravate Gautier. He shadowed his father and wrote letters to Ingrid and Felix and Annette and Mercedes and Ashe. The Empire pushed the war into Kingdom territories. Ashe was the first to stop writing back as Rowe fell quickly to the Empire. Annette’s next letter detailed the fact that Ashe had joined her family at the Dominic Barony. Then Dominic fell and Annette’s letters ceased. 

Ingrid’s letters grew increasingly worried and Sylvain felt helpless. Gautier was north enough and far away enough from the front lines that he hadn’t seen any real fights. His father was sending men to fight, of course, but Sylvain had barely left the Margravate. 

Felix’s letters were abrupt and short and increasingly angry after Baron Dominic surrendered to the Empire. Felix, unlike Sylvain, had seen the fighting firsthand. He was with his father coordinating attacks and troops and trying to keep the Kingdom’s war effort under control with no thanks to the capital. 

Dimitri never wrote. Sylvain wrote him one letter, but then decided to spend his energy elsewhere. 

Two months into the war, the Margrave called him into his study.

“You’ve been writing to your friends.”

“Yes.”

“You know, then, that Dominic and many of the Eastern Lords have surrendered to the Empire.”

“Yes.”

“You are going to stop writing to Galatea. You may continue your correspondence to Fraldarius, but you will cease writing to Galatea.”

Sylvain stiffened. “The Count is on our side. He will not cave, no matter the pressure that the Empire places on him. Besides, he borders the Alliance, not the Empire.”

“It does not do well to involve a woman in war.”

And then he understood. This wasn’t a security risk in his letters going to Galatea, it was an _Ingrid-risk_. Sylvain was suddenly very angry, very quickly. 

“And the Count?”

“He made the request of me,” the Margrave replied coolly. He glanced up from his desk and assessed Sylvain. “Take the lance and a cavalry battalion. There have been disturbances at the Sreng border. You are to deal with them. You leave tomorrow.”

Sylvain nearly hurled a chair at his father, but he kept his temper under control and swept out of his father’s office. He penned a letter to Felix asking about Ingrid and if Fraldarius had also been asked to keep her out of the loop. He enclosed a shorter letter to Ingrid as well, explaining that he was off to cause more death and destruction on the border for a while. 

* * *

The melting snow on the Sreng border quickly became stained with mud and the blood of soldiers. The Sreng warriors didn’t seem to get the hint though, and they kept coming. Day after day they tried to push the border south and day after day Sylvain swung the Lance of Ruin and cut down sons and fathers and brothers. 

Two of his horses died and were swiftly replaced. He rode at the front of his troops, commanding them and leading them into battle in the day, but at night he retreated to his tent and wrote letters. 

Felix wrote back: he was still speaking with Ingrid, but likely only due to the already existing relationship between Galatea and Fraldarius. Ingrid’s letters came through Felix. He received no more letters from Mercedes. 

Sylvain pressed a pen to the paper and couldn’t find the words to describe the slaughter he faced every day. Men died for a line in the sand that moved inch by bloody inch daily. His hands were so stained with blood, he dreaded the day he might hold something other than a weapon. He understood Dimitri’s fear now: the hands of a monster were not fit to hold anything other than a tool of war. 

His lance and riding skills flourished under the conditions, but Sylvain missed axes and strength and precision and the rushing feeling of wind around him as he flew above the earth on a wyvern that responded much more instinctively than a horse.

He stayed at the border for three months and they were three of the worst months of his life. His letters took longer to be delivered to his friends and their responses were delayed. But, finally, his father summoned him home and the situation at the border settled to a point where the Gautier troops could mostly retreat back to the centre of the Margravate. 

* * *

They met the Fraldarius messenger at the edge of the city. The courier insisted he had urgent information for the Margrave, but Sylvain straightened his shoulders and demanded the message himself, first. 

The news was worse than he expected: Fhirdiad had fallen and Dimitri was dead.

Sylvain’s head spun. The messenger came from Fraldarius. That meant that Felix already knew and it meant that Margrave Gautier was likely close to the top of the list of people to find out. The ride from Fraldarius territory to Gautier was shorter than the ride from Fraldarius to Galatea. 

He sent the messenger onwards to his father and made immediately for the stables. He took a warhorse from the stables and took an axe from the armoury. He gathered what he needed for a four-day ride and called aside three of the knights that had ridden the fastest with him from Sreng.  
  
“We ride for Galatea at dusk,” he instructed. “Your orders come from me, not my father. If you don’t wish to come, find me a replacement who will.”

All three of the knights accepted his commands and prepared to depart. Not a word was uttered to his father until they reached the edge of the city surrounding Castle Gautier. Sylvain sent a messenger then, to inform his father that he was riding for Galatea and that he would be back in probably two weeks. 

* * *

They reached Galatea after four days of exhaustive, intense riding and Sylvain felt ready to fall off of his horse. Instead, he spotted the lone figure riding towards him from Galatea Manor. She was riding bareback and was wearing only riding pants and a casual top, but even from this far away, he could see the murder on her expression and the lance in her hand. 

He jumped off his horse so that he was on foot when she reached him and Ingrid dismounted before she had come to a full stop. She recognized him later than he had expected and had barely managed to lower her lance before he drew her into a bruising hug. 

“What’s happening?” Ingrid asked, her hands curling into his armour. She sounded lost and upset and Sylvain thought of Dimitri and his voice caught in his throat. 

He buried his nose in her hair and exhaled shakily. In his arms, Ingrid twisted, trying to pull away, but he didn’t let her. Finally, she got the leverage she needed and jammed her palms against his chest hard enough that he had to lean away to keep his balance. 

She looked confused and stricken. “Why was there an express messenger from Fraldarius here yesterday? Why are you here, Sylvain?”

“Rufus was murdered,” he said shakily. “Rufus was murdered and Cornelia framed Dimitri.”

Ingrid’s hands flew to her mouth in horror. “No.”

Sylvain felt tears burn in his eyes. His voice broke when he continued. “He’s gone, Ing. They _executed_ him.”

Ingrid threw herself against him again as she sobbed. Sylvain clutched her like she was the anchor that held him to the earth. He ignored his bloodstained hands as he hugged her and they cried together. Someone’s knees gave out and they ended up on the ground, holding each other as they grieved for the prince and their friend and their country. 

Fhirdiad had fallen and now Sylvain had no home. 

* * *

Count Galatea begrudgingly allowed Sylvain to stay. He and his soldiers were put up in the meagre guest wing of the manor, but Sylvain understood that his men being here put a drain on Galatea’s resources that was unsustainable. 

Sylvain told the Count that he would leave after four days, giving his men just enough time to be well-rested again before they returned to Margravate Gautier. The Count seemed to find this satisfactory enough, though Sylvain knew his presence had seriously pissed off Ingrid’s father. 

Ingrid’s father who had been making every attempt to hide the truth of the war from Ingrid. Ingrid’s father who had been trying to ensure that Ingrid didn’t know Dimitri was dead and that Fhirdiad had fallen and that the true Kingdom was starting to lose the war. Ingrid’s father whose plans Sylvain had completely upturned, causing Ingrid to grow furious at her father. 

Sylvain hadn’t really expected Ingrid to retaliate, but Ingrid showed up at his door the night before he was set to return to Gautier with a pair of scissors and an expression full of fury. As soon as he had opened the door, she had pushed past him, heading into his adjoining bath chamber. 

He watched her hack off her long hair until it was trimmed short around her jaw. The job was fairly uneven and Sylvain didn’t do anything except watch from the entrance of the chamber as Ingrid’s hair tumbled to the floor. Her jaw was set as she did it, but once she placed the scissors down, her expression crumpled. 

Sylvain hurried to her and touched her shoulder. She turned to him, her eyes blazing and filled with tears. 

“Gilbert said that the execution was concealed. He believes Dimitri escaped.”

Sylvain was surprised. The messenger in Gautier hadn’t delivered that piece of information, but by the anger and the sternness of Ingrid’s expression, he knew that she had wrestled the information out of her father and that she believed it whole-heartedly. 

“You think he’s still alive.”

Her hand curled over his where it rested on her shoulder. “We lost Fhirdiad. We lost Dominic and Rowe and we don’t know what’s happened to our friends there. I refuse to accept that we’ve lost him too.”

Ashe and Annette’s whereabouts were still uncertain since the surrender of the Dominic Barony. Mercedes had been in Fhirdiad the last time she had written and there hadn’t been time to confirm if she had escaped too. Dedue also would have been in Fhirdiad, with Dimitri. 

“What do you want to do?”

Ingrid smiled at him: a small, watery one, but a smile nonetheless. “I want to find him.”

“Then let’s go.”

She stood up and threw her arms around him. “Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you for not taking this away from me too.

Sylvain hugged her and said nothing. For all the pain he had caused and felt since the war started, he could not imagine being Ingrid. He could not imagine being a prisoner in her own home where she was not allowed to know the truth of what happened outside her walls. He could not imagine not being allowed to fight for his country: something they had trained their entire lives to be able to do. 

* * *

They made plans to meet in Fraldarius territory in a few months. They would play along with their parents for a little while longer, but then they would go. They didn’t inform Felix of the plan, but they both knew that he would never let them go after Dimitri without him, even if they were chasing a ghost. 

Ingrid saw him off when he left Galatea and there was more life and energy in her eyes than he remembered seeing for a long time. She had a purpose now and it was hers to fill, not her father’s to hide from her. Sylvain was happy to provide her with that. He brushed a hand through her shorter hair when he hugged her goodbye. Her hands were cold when she touched his face softly in farewell, but Sylvain smiled anyways. 

* * *

Five years passed. Days and weeks and months trickled by with agonizing slowness. Sylvain and Ingrid’s fathers had been furious when they left to search for Dimitri, but Lord Rodrigue provided them with stables for their mounts and supplies for their trip and information that they could use to scour forests and villages across Faerghus. 

Felix was furious at his father’s intervention, but Ingrid and Sylvain were grateful for the assistance. Gilbert joined them sometimes too, but most recently, he had been headed east while they investigated a forest to the south. 

They were following a bare-bones rumour of murdered Imperial patrols on their way south to the monastery. Garreg Mach had been left empty for five years, but Ingrid insisted that they make their way there for the five year anniversary. It was supposed to be a happy occasion, but she argued that maybe the others would come too and they could see Annette and Mercedes and Ashe and Dedue again and they could join in the search. 

In the end, the three of them arrived, already tired, to a battle underway in the outskirts of the monastery. Ashe arrived with Gilbert and Mercedes and Annette arrived together. 

Moonlight glinted off a silver lance at the north part of the battlefield as Dimitri cut his way through bandits. The Professor fought beside him, her expression calm and her sword quick as she protected the reckless prince. 

After the fight, they regrouped at the foot of the monastery. He grinned at his old classmates and former professor and studied Dimitri with a critical eye. There was something broken about Dimitri; something more broken than it had been five years prior. 

Dedue’s death was an unexpected sting. Dimitri’s voice sounded more human when it broke on his friend’s name and Sylvain’s heart clenched uncomfortably. It wasn’t right that their friend was dead. Dedue, who had given him cooking tips. Dedue, who had been grateful to hear his opinion. Dedue, who had taken none of his shit and reminded Sylvain that he deserved to be seen as a human, not a tool or a beast. 

Sylvain looked up at the damaged monastery that loomed above him. Even though nothing about the circumstances were ideal, something in Sylvain’s chest jumped excitedly. His friends were almost all here and Dimitri was alive and the Professor was alive. 

Despite the horrid circumstances, he was home.


	3. three - fire and life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sylvain looked up at the statue of Seiros at the centre of the Cathedral. She was missing her head. He looked at the figure standing before the statue, shoulders hunched and eyes solidly on the ground._
> 
> _The army was missing their head too._ / three - how it ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really cannot extend my thanks enough to [paperpenpal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperpenpal/works), [Julx3tte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julx3tte/works), and [sunnilee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnilee/works) for all their support while I wrote this project. 
> 
> And to the rest of the Sylvgrid discord putting up with me starting a comical chain of events based off of a _pool noodle_ and for providing me feedback and encouragement to put this piece out there. 
> 
> I hope this fic did an adequate job peeking into the mind of one of my favourite characters. I love Sylvain's complexities and his weaknesses, but I love how he loves. And I hope this emulates that~
> 
> (oh and shoutout to my work computer for breaking, allowing me to finish this way sooner than I would have otherwise)

_three - fire and life_

* * *

There was moonlight in the Cathedral. Shattered stained glass meant that the Cathedral was open to the elements. Plants curled around pews and at the bases of statues. Rubble decorated holy chambers and crushed wood and stone alike. 

Sylvain looked up at the statue of Seiros at the centre of the Cathedral. She was missing her head. He looked at the figure standing before the statue, shoulders hunched and eyes solidly on the ground. 

The army was missing their head too.

Sylvain sat in one of the pews close to the back of the Cathedral and just watched Dimitri. The prince’s tall frame was practically dwarfed by his massive cloak, the blood and dirt on which matted the fur. 

The cloak was familiar to Sylvain, as was the armour Dimitri wore. They were the former garments of the late king, Dimitri’s father, Lambert. Dimitri didn’t look like a king though. Not in the way that Sylvain remembered Lambert standing. Dimitri looked like a beast, though Sylvain would never dare utter that phrase in front of Felix. 

The Cathedral doors groaned when they opened. Sylvain tilted his head, tearing his eyes from the prince, to see who had entered. It was the Professor. She seemed unsurprised to see Dimitri where he was, but one of her eyebrows ticked up when she saw him. 

Sylvain stood, brushing his palms off on his trousers. He knew a conversation he wasn’t meant for when he saw one. He brushed past the Professor wordlessly. She ghosted a hand against his arm as he left, but she didn’t stop him. It was a dismissal, but at least she was thankful to him. 

Sylvain stood outside the main doors to the Cathedral and studied the crumbling stonework around him. “Fall to ruin, tear to bone,” he muttered. “War changes more than people.”

* * *

He was in the stable when the news arrived. He had a hand through the hutch of a wyvern as he stroked the beast’s scales. It had been a long time since he had seen a wyvern and an even longer time since he had flown. The practice was much more common in the east, the closer one got to Almyra. 

Sylvain could still remember Hilda complaining about wyverns when they trained together, doing flying patrols. Sylvain humoured her, listening to her, but he never agreed with her. A lance and horse was the way that a good Kingdom noble ought to have fought. An axe and a wyvern was a way that would have earned him chastisement. He knew what he preferred. 

Felix never understood that. He liked to be solidly on the ground, sword in hand, as he cut down his enemies. Sylvain liked the easy escape route. On horseback, your movement was limited by the terrain. In the sky, you could fly a hundred feet up and be dangerously close to a lethal falling height should a breeze hit you wrong. It was freeing. 

The wyvern he was stroking seemed happy to bask in the attention he was giving it and Sylvain almost didn’t hear Ashe coming. The younger man’s foot skidded on the sand-covered stone, and Sylvain turned. 

Ashe looked worried and Sylvain withdrew his hand from the wyvern’s hutch. “Ashe?”

“Imperial troops are on the way here. The Professor has called a meeting.” 

Sylvain straightened. Right. There was a war going on, after all, and it was unlikely that the Emperor would sit idly as her hated enemies took back a central location. 

“Let me get my lance,” Sylvain said to Ashe. 

Ashe nodded and turned to leave. He paused at the edge of the stables and looked back. “It’s good to see you again, Sylvain.”

Sylvain smiled faintly at Ashe’s earnestness. He may have grown up a lot in the five years since they’d last seen each other, but at least he hadn’t completely changed. “You too.”

* * *

The Professor told him to cover Ingrid in the sky and directed them both to mount up to fly. Ingrid didn’t hesitate, nodding curtly and heading to don her armour and retrieve her Relic. Sylvain hesitated, furrowing his brow at the Professor. 

“I’m a certified Paladin,” he reminded her. 

She shook her head, keeping her eyes on the map of the area around the monastery in front of her. “I need you to cover her. We don’t have battalions yet.” She looked up. “Keep her safe, Sylvain.”

That was the only order he needed. He nodded and straightened. “I will.”

* * *

After they sent the Imperials packing, some merchants began to return. Businesses opened up and trade tentatively began to resume. The Knights of Seiros returned, Seteth and Flayn amidst them, and many other Blue Lions and transfer students had come back as well. 

Specifically, he had seen Dorothea and Petra from the Empire and Leonie, Marianne, and Ignatz from the Alliance. 

Sylvain drank from the tankard in front of him. He spun it back on its rim and stared at the tarnished surface of it. After the debacle that had taken place in the Cardinal’s Room today, he had just wanted to get away for a bit. Thankfully, the bar just outside the monastery was getting back into its swing, providing drinks to the limited Knights and soldiers that had returned. 

He could still hear Dimitri’s voice growling through the room as he made a point of mistrusting the former transfer students. Sylvain had almost expected soft, sweet Marianne to cry, but she had just looked at him with pity. Annette had almost cried though, which of course made Felix angry enough to shout. 

Dimitri had lashed out, as expected, and set a brutal course for Enbarr. 

Sylvain drained his mug and winced at the headache that pounded behind his temples. He signalled for the barkeep to refill him. The man swept away the coins that Sylvain placed down and replaced the mug in front of him. 

Sylvain chugged a third of the drink as soon as he could. There was a woman in the corner of the bar that was eyeing him like she was going to devour him. Once, he might have carried his drink to her and given her a charming smile before leading her to bed, but now he was tired. He drank from his mug until it was empty. 

He pushed off the barstool and managed to make his way back to the outskirts of the monastery without staggering too much. He skirted outside the building, heading around by the fishing pond to reach the stairs to the second level of what used to be the dorms. 

He paused when he rounded the corner. Mercedes was sitting on the pier with a basin of water, scrubbing at what looked like dishes. He considered trying to go around her, but there was something jerky and harsh about her actions that didn’t seem very Mercedes-like. He approached her instead. 

She didn’t look up when he approached, but her hands paused in their aggressive scrubbing. “Sylvain,” she said quietly. 

He sat down next to her. “May I?”

She looked up. Her eyes looked sad and a bit confused. She hesitated for a moment before disappointment flickered over her face. “You’re drunk.”

Sylvain felt immediately guilty. “Not drunk enough to leave you here by yourself.”

She slid the basin towards him and Sylvain picked up the cloth she had been working with and resumed her work. Mercedes leaned away from him to rinse her hands in the fishing pond. A few loose food scraps drifted off her fingers, including a few noodles from the dry, ration meals they had been consuming. 

He worked at the dishes until they were clean and then he studied Mercedes. She was sitting, staring over the pond at the greenhouse with a troubled expression.

“Mercedes,” he said lightly. 

She turned back to him and smiled weakly. “When Annie told me that she wanted to go back for the anniversary, I almost didn’t go with her.”

Sylvain frowned. “Didn’t see the point?”

“I was in Fhirdiad during Dimitri’s execution,” she said bluntly, putting air quotations up as she exaggerated execution. She shook her head, looking pained. “I could live the rest of my life without seeing that kind of violence and disaster again.”

Sylvain’s thoughts came to a grinding halt. “Did you see him before he got out of the city?”

She shook her head. “I never saw Dimitri, but,” she hesitated and Sylvain’s brain kicked back into gear just quickly enough to catch where she was going. 

“Dedue.”

She closed her eyes. “He told me what he was planning before they went through with it. I wanted to go with them to help, in case they needed a healer, but he promised that they had it handled. The men of Duscur believed in him.” A faint smile tilted her lips upward. “He looked like he belonged with them.”

“Mercedes,” he began.

She stood up suddenly, brushing her hands off on the front of her dress. She adjusted her short hair and smiled tightly at him. “Thank you for your help, Sylvain, but I’ll be fine.”

She tried to walk past him, but he grabbed her elbow as gently as he could. “Five years ago, you never would have let me walk away from you like this. Please let me do the same for you.”

She gently removed his hand. “Sylvain, you have your own burdens. You don’t need to shoulder mine and everyone else’s on top of that.”

She left him there, on the pier, half-drunk and feeling incredibly cold. 

* * *

The clang of metal on metal told Sylvain that he had guessed correctly on his search. He could hear the exertion of the training regiment before he even had the door open and when he pushed it open, Felix’s grunts joined the sound of his weapon beating up a target. 

Sylvain stood in the entrance of the training hall and just watched his friend for a moment. Felix was a marvel to watch when he trained: light on his feet and quick enough with his blade that you might not even see it coming. Felix was currently working with a dulled iron sword, but Sylvain spotted his Wo Dao in a sheath nearby. His Relic, Aegis, and the sword that his father had entrusted to him at Ailell were also nearby, but Felix seemed completely focused on his target. 

Finally, Sylvain cleared his throat. Felix’s blade slowed and he turned to look at his friend. Felix’s eyes were blazing and Sylvain didn’t know if it was anger, irritation, or frustration. The tip of Felix’s sword dipped towards the floor and his body posture relaxed a little when he saw that it was only Sylvain. 

“What do you want?”

“To spar,” Sylvain replied. He strode over to the training weapons rack. 

Years of instinct and fighting against both sword-wielding Fraldarius brothers had him instinctively reaching for a lance. At the last minute, he changed his mind and grabbed one of the dull training axes. Felix assessed him, scowling. 

“Take the lance,” he suggested instead. 

Sylvain turned back to face him, grinning. “Nah.”

Felix’s scowl deepened. “Sylvain,” he growled. 

Sylvain didn’t let him get any further, hefting the axe and charging. Felix parried his blow easily, shifting his weight to knock Sylvain forward, past him. The flat of his blade smacked Sylvain between the shoulder blades. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Felix grumbled. 

Sylvain turned and threw a handful of sand in Felix’s face. He followed it up with a heavy swing of his axe that caught and pinned Felix’s blade. Felix cursed at the sand, but he rotated his sword and slid it free from the pin. He slashed at Sylvain’s hands and Sylvain was forced to retreat back a few steps to dodge the strike. 

“Are you asking me to kick your ass now?”

Sylvain grinned and draped the axe over one of his shoulders casually. “I’m asking you to give me a challenge.”

His words lowered the last of Felix’s guard, and the Fraldarius heir flew at him with no further reservations. Sylvain barely managed to block the first strike, but Felix’s blade moved in a burst of short, vicious swings. He recognized this move as one that Catherine used to make 5 years back, but he didn’t know that Felix had mastered it as well. He took the next four blows on his ribs, arms, legs, and stomach. 

Felix knocked him back and Sylvain swung back, jabbing straight with the head of the axe and twisting it mid-strike so that it caught on the hilt of the sword. Using his strength, Sylvain yanked hard on the axe and managed to overpower Felix, jerking the weapon out of his hand. He was about to gloat when something hit him around the middle, tackling him to the ground. 

Felix’s legs easily pinned the lower half of his body to the ground and his fist slammed into Sylvain’s face right as he remembered that Felix was also brutally proficient in brawling. 

“Stop!” a shrill voice cried. 

Felix froze, his hand pulled back like he was about to strike Sylvain again. He immediately jumped up, leaving Sylvain lying flat on his back on the training ground floor like a fool. Sylvain lolled his head to the side to look around his friend and he saw a horrified Annette standing at the entrance to the training hall. Ingrid was beside her, but her expression was drawn and hard to read, unlike the easy dismay on Annette’s face. 

Felix stormed over to the training rack and shelved his sword and Sylvain’s axe. He retrieved his other swords and his Relic and brushed past Annette out of the training hall. The mage didn’t hesitate before following him, but Ingrid stayed, staring at Sylvain as he sat up, but didn’t stand. 

“Were you trying to goad him into beating the shit out of you? That’s what it looked like he was about to do,” Ingrid demanded, irritation finally taking over her expression. 

Sylvain rubbed his jaw. It was definitely going to bruise. He stayed sitting on the ground and shrugged. “He needs to be in top form. I was trying to snap him out of whatever funk he has sunk into since his father got here.”

Ingrid sighed and walked over to him, offering him a hand up. Sylvain took it and let her pull him up. Once he was standing, she pursed her lips. “You’re both still hurt from Ailell. You shouldn’t be fighting each other and you, especially, should know better to challenge Felix without a weapon.”

Sylvain laughed. “To be fair, we did both have weapons at the start. I quite handily managed to disarm him.”  
  
Ingrid’s gaze flickered over to the weapons rack where she had watched Felix put away a sword and an axe. “Don’t shut me out, Sylvain,” she said quietly. 

He blinked. “What?”

Ingrid looked back at him, her eyes darker than they had been a moment before. “Don’t shut down. Don’t back yourself into this corner and leave yourself no escape.” Her gaze darted to his jaw which was probably already bruising. “You should get that looked at.”

She started to walk away from him and Sylvain’s hand flashed out, grabbing her arm. She paused and looked back at him. Sylvain dropped his hand like he had been burned and closed his eyes. 

“Felix isn’t doing well,” he mumbled. 

Ingrid nodded. “I know. His father being here and talking about Dimitri has thrown him from his rhythm.” 

Sylvain didn’t mention that he thought Felix’s rhythm had been off for a lot longer than just since his father’s arrival. He had been twitchy and quick to the punch his whole life, but since the war began, Sylvain had seen a whole new side of his friend. 

“Dimitri,” Sylvain mumbled. “What are we doing, Ing? There’s no way he’s sane enough to lead us anywhere but on a suicide mission.”

Her shoulders wilted, her ever-present impassive strength fading for a moment. “He’s the Kingdom’s last chance, Sylvain.”

“Is he? Or is he just a man who’s on a crazed quest for revenge. We’re an army with a ghost for a leader, Ingrid. We aren’t going to get very far on his brute strength alone.”

Ingrid’s gaze sharpened. “He’s still your King, Sylvain.”

His anger deflated. “I know,” he mumbled. “It’s just hard to see him self-destructing this way.”  
  
Ingrid studied his face and paused. “Try being in my shoes,” she said. “You and Dimitri and Felix are more alike than you want to believe.”

* * *

Sylvain lingered in the Cardinal’s Room after the war meeting concluded. He didn’t mean to, he just got caught up studying the map and didn’t notice everyone else had already departed until the Professor called his name. 

“Sylvain?”

His head snapped up. “Oh,” he glanced around, “sorry, Professor, I’ll get out of your hair.”  
  
“Wait,” she said. Her brows were knit and she smoothed her hands over the map. “Did you see something?”

Sylvain glanced back at the map. “I like the idea of engaging Gloucester forces through House Riegan, but I can’t help but wonder about Lorenz. As much as he and Claude fought during the time we were at the Officer’s Academy, I can’t help but think that he might see through this. Claude is shrewd, yes, but he and Lorenz did know each other pretty well.”

The Professor considered his words. “That’s a good point.” She reached out and swapped her battalion with Annette’s, putting the mages in the heart of the formation. “That should cover us should they get reinforcements from the Gloucester side of the bridge.” She looked back up at him. “Anything else?”

Sylvain considered the map again. He was set to lead a wyvern battalion to back up Petra as she cleared a path on the ground with a group of assassins. It was a good formation, but it hadn’t been one he was expecting. “You keep deploying me as a wyvern rider,” he pointed out. “Arguably, I would be better on horseback.”

She smiled at him. “I’ve seen you in the sky, Sylvain. You may not have Petra or Ingrid’s natural aptitude for it, but it suits you. If Ingrid and Seteth are our only fliers, we’ll get into trouble in places with narrow ground placements. Flying will give you the freedom to get where you need to be, to push objectives that only you can.”

Sylvain blinked. He hadn’t realized that the Professor had so easily picked up on his skill in the sky. It had taken work to get used to, but he did enjoy it. He stared at the pieces on the map again and noted that the Dimitri was set to be deployed on the north side, near the Professor. 

“Are we making the right choice in taking the bridge?” he asked next. 

The Professor’s brow sets into a line. She didn’t look angry, just thoughtful. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Dimitri is set on a course for Enbarr, however, so we should see to it that he is protected on that path. Of course,” she reached for Dimitri’s marker and lifted it up, “he’s not going alone.” She made eye contact with Sylvain. “I will keep as many of you safe as I can. We will end this war, and we will do it with minimal losses. I promise you that.”

Sylvain trusted her. He always had, but her words rang heavy and true. She believed that they would take the Great Bridge of Myrddin and he believed her. Dimitri was almost certainly insane, but Byleth was not. 

The army may have lacked a head, but it certainly did not lack its heart. 

* * *

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’re here, Gautier, should I?” Lorenz said as he approached. 

Sylvain withdrew his hand from the wyvern hutch and turned to the Gloucester Noble. “You shouldn’t be,” Sylvain agreed coolly.

Lorenz walked by him to the stall where his horse was, whistling for its attention as he approached. Mildly curious, Sylvain followed him. Lorenz brushed a hand along the nose of his horse, patting it reassuringly. 

“I am grateful to the Professor for sparing me,” Lorenz said quietly once he noticed that Sylvain had followed him. “I do wish that there could have been more done for Ferdinand though.”

Sylvain frowned. Ferdinand and he had not been particularly close at the Officer’s Academy, but he knew that Ferdinand had been similar to him in a few ways: they both had a natural love of horses and a preference for good tea. Of course, those things were what had made Ferdinand and Lorenz become friends.

“I understand why there wasn’t,” Lorenz continued at Sylvain’s silence. His voice faltered and he returned to stroking his steed, obviously trying to gather himself. “Even so, he was my friend. I don’t think he deserved that.”

Sylvain recalled the horrible sound of Ferdinand’s armour crumpling and his steed crying out as Dimitri cut them down without flinching. “No,” he agreed, feeling mildly sick to his stomach. “He didn’t.”

“You all are content to be led by a mad prince then? I noticed that his Duscur companion reappeared during the fight as well.”  
  
Sylvain grabbed Lorenz by his collar and pinned him to the stable wall in a flash of anger. “Do not,” he growled, “mistake the fact that you and I have some twisted friendship for loyalty or an obligation to tolerate the things you say about my friend, Lorenz.”

Lorenz raised his hands calmly. “Point taken."

Sylvain released him and stepped away. Lorenz’s eyes darted over his shoulder and Sylvain turned, following his gaze. Marianne stood at the entrance of the stable, holding an armful of tack and staring straight at Sylvain and Lorenz with her lips parted in surprise. 

Lorenz straightened his armour and walked towards Marianne. “How can I help you, Marianne?”

Sylvain watched as Marianne carefully unloaded some of her equipment to Lorenz who swiftly carried it to the appropriate storage bin. Marianne walked towards Sylvain, her chin dropping a little as she approached. Sylvain stepped away from the stall he was leaning against, recognizing it as Dorte’s stall. 

“Are you alright, Marianne?” Sylvain asked quietly, his eyes darting towards Lorenz who was well-distracted organizing the gear given to him by Marianne. 

Marianne lifted her eyes and the edges of her lips curled up a little bit. “I’m alright,” she said softly. Her gaze darted to Lorenz and sadness tinged her expression. “Ferdinand was so kind to me when we were at school, but,” she paused, struggling, “so was Dimitri.”

Sylvain exhaled slowly and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Marianne, I didn’t realize.”

She reached up to brush the side of Dorte’s neck. She smiled sadly. “Well, we’ll just have to make it count then, right? Fulfill the purpose.”

Sylvain touched one of Dorte’s ears and the horse twitched it happily, relishing in the attention. “You’ll be okay if I leave you with Lorenz?”

Marianne giggled lightly. “Yes, Sylvain, we’ll be okay.” She gazed at Lorenz again with something almost curious in her gaze. “He has always been kind to me.”

Sylvain patted Dorte’s neck one more time before he walked away. He headed down towards the front of the monastery, just letting his feet guide him, and he ended up walking towards the fishing pond. When he rounded the southern corner of the monastery, he paused mid-stride, seeing something he hadn’t quite expected. 

Dorothea was sitting on the end of the dock, much like they had years ago after the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. Sylvain looked around quickly: no one else seemed to be there, probably giving Dorothea her space. He approached her, making sure that he kicked at least two boards as he walked down the dock so he didn’t startle her. 

He knelt next to her. “Mind if I sit? For old times sake?”

She looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think you announced your presence well enough.”

“Didn’t want to startle you,” he said honestly, shifting so that he was sitting next to her. 

Dorothea twisted her hands in her lap and Sylvain just sat quietly, waiting for her to say something if she wanted to. “Ferdie,” she said after a pause, “we killed him. Just like that.”

Her hands shook and Sylvain lifted one of his own to cover hers. “Hey,” he said gently, “you had nothing to do with that.”

She shook her head and her eyes fluttered closed. “I chose to be here, you know. Edie asked all of us to join her. Petra and I, we couldn’t commit to that. Ferdie tried to talk me into coming with him, but I knew where I wanted to be for the reunion.” 

Sylvain squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you’re here,” he offered. It felt lame, but Dorothea opened her eyes and looked at him. 

“Don’t go flirting with me, Gautier,” she said and then leaned her head on his shoulder. 

Sylvain laughed lightly. “I’d offer you a warm bed if we both didn’t know that would be the absolute worst idea.”

She scoffed. “Proposition me again and you’ll end up at the bottom of this pool.”

Sylvain chuckled. “Don’t worry, we won’t go there again.”

Dorothea turned her hand over in his so that she was holding his hand properly. Her thumb traced over a scar on the back of it. “Did you see a healer about your leg yet?”  
  
Dorothea had given him some emergency white magic back on the Great Bridge, but it hadn’t been strong enough to keep him going for that long. Sylvain shrugged. “Annette gave me a touch of her magic, but there were more important people to look after.”

Dorothea tensed and lifted her head from his shoulder. She levelled a stern glare at him. “Sylvain, listen to me. You and I are very similar. So, take it from me when I say that you need to work on yourself.”

He tensed and frowned, but Dorothea ignored him. 

“You walk around with this chip on your shoulder about the Crest system and you brush people off when they try to deal with it. You’re so set on being helpful to others that you refuse to let other people look after you every now and then. You don’t talk about yourself–not seriously, anyways–and you do things like jump recklessly in front of people in battle and refuse healing, even when you need it.”

He felt cowed. She had stripped him of all of his defences in a few short sentences and broken down his personality just as easily. “Thea,” he started, but she shook her head. 

“You talk about women and sex and love like they’re the easiest things in the world, but I see right through you. You wouldn’t know what to do with a real emotion if you had one because you’re so used to beating them back with a stick or trampling them with a horse made of all of your insecurities. I know more than enough about insecurities, Sylvain, and I see yours. I’d pity any woman who actually fell in love with you because you wouldn’t know what to do with her.”

Sylvain recoiled away from her. “I don’t even know where to begin with that.” He felt nasty words itching on the tip of his tongue. He bit it, reflexively, so he wouldn’t spit them out. 

Dorothea crossed her arms, her eyes softening. “Sorry, that was a bit harsh.”

Sylvain snorted, breaking into laughter before he could stop himself. “All true though,” he said in between laughs. 

Dorothea bit her lip to try and hide her smile. “Sorry,” she apologized again. 

Sylvain shrugged. “Like I said, not wrong.”

“For the record, Sylvain, with the way I’ve seen you acting more recently, I don’t think you’d be completely useless with real emotions. You have more empathy than you’re given credit for.”

He reclined back on his hands and looked up at the sky. “I’m sorry about Ferdinand. He didn’t deserve that.”

Dorothea’s head dipped. “No, but I guess that’s war, isn’t it? Your Kingdom has started this wildfire on your path to Enbarr and I guess now it’s burn or be burned.”

* * *

The sound that Felix had made when his father was stabbed was so haunting and terrifying. Sylvain knew he would never be able to unhear it. His friend had buckled, staring blankly across Gronder Field and Sylvain barely managed to catch the straps of Felix’s armour. Felix’s chest heaved against him, pain flashing across his face, but it was quickly replaced by rage. 

“I’m going to kill him,” he growled. 

“No,” Sylvain said firmly. “Felix, no.”

Felix thrashed in his arms and Sylvain almost lost his grip until another set of arms wrapped around Felix and assisted Sylvain in restraining him. Sylvain made eye contact with Ingrid and almost teared up himself at the pain on her face. She had tears rolling down her cheeks, but she didn’t say anything as they held Felix back. 

Felix was crying, but he was still bubbling with rage. “Let me go,” he snarled. 

“No,” Ingrid said, her voice wobbling. “You can’t.”

“Let me go, Ingrid.”

“No,” Sylvain agreed, “Felix, we’re not letting you go.”

His words seemed to steal the last of the fight out of Felix and his anger dissolved. He buckled in on himself, his forehead landing on Ingrid’s shoulder as his shoulders shook in his grief. Sylvain fell to his knees and pulled both Felix and Ingrid together until Ingrid’s head touched his arm as they wrapped Felix tightly between them. 

A few stray raindrops fell from the sky. One landed on Sylvain’s cheek and he thought about all the horrible days that it had rained. It had poured on them on the return trip to the Monastery after they had taken out Lonato. It had rained when Jeralt Eisner died. He was even pretty sure it had rained the day of the Tragedy of Duscur. It had rained when his mother had died too.

Sylvain finally broke, letting out a strangled gasp. He leaned forward until his forehead touched Felix’s temple. Ingrid’s hand slid up his neck and tangled in the hair at the base of his skull. 

* * *

Ingrid and Sylvain buried Rodrigue. Dimitri came back. Felix grieved.

It rained. 

* * *

The day before they marched for Fhirdiad, Sylvain’s packing was interrupted by a knock on his door. He turned, closing his trunk, and stood. Ingrid was standing in his doorway, her hands behind her back. 

He brushed his hands off on his pants. “Hey Ing,” he greeted. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She looked uncharacteristically shy for a moment. “Can I come in?”

Sylvain frowned and sat on the edge of his bed. “Yeah, of course.”

Ingrid closed the door behind her and Sylvain’s eyebrows shot up. She walked across his room and sat in his desk chair, turning it so that they were facing each other. She put her face in her hands and took in a deep breath. 

“Ingrid?” he prompted gently. 

“I spent this whole campaign hoping we’d get to take back Fhirdiad, but I never thought it would be like this.”

Sylvain reached out and touched her knee lightly. “I know,” he agreed. “I don’t know whether to be happy or sad."

Ingrid dropped her hands from her face so they landed over top of Sylvain’s hand. She searched his face with her earnest green eyes and Sylvain’s heart flipped stupidly in his chest. Her thumb traced a circle on the back of his hand and he had to force himself not to shiver. 

“I don’t want to lose anyone else,” Ingrid said quietly. “We got Dimitri back, but I can’t lose anyone else, Sylvain.”  
  
Sylvain turned his hand over so he was holding hers and he tugged on it gently. Ingrid let him pull her over to his bed and sat next to him, leaning against him. Sylvain wrapped his arms around her and hugged her as best he could while they sat side by side. He rested his chin atop her head and closed his eyes, relishing in her closeness. 

“Stay close to me,” he urged. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation, but it needed repeating. 

She twisted in his grip, one of her hands reaching up to touch the junction of his neck and shoulder. He leant back so that he could look at her. Her hand turned so she was cupping his jaw and Sylvain’s breath caught in his chest. 

He had been here before with countless women, but never with Ingrid. He had never dared initiate this with Ingrid because he couldn’t ruin her too. Ingrid was looking at him like she was trying to look through him and every horrible, self-ruinous part of Sylvain wanted to push her away. The tiny, guilty part of him that lived under layers of repressed grief wanted to kiss her. 

He pressed his lips to her forehead instead and watched her cheeks flush and lips part in surprise. 

“Don’t go far from me,” he pleaded again. 

Ingrid buried her face in her chest. “And you from me,” she echoed, her voice muffled by his shirt. 

Sylvain carded his fingers through her short blonde hair. “Do you want to stay?” he asked before his filter could catch up with him. She tensed momentarily and Sylvain cringed internally. “Just to sleep,” he assured quickly. 

Ingrid’s fingers brushed over his ear as she fiddled with the ends of his hair. “Yes,” she murmured quietly. “I want to stay.”

* * *

They celebrated in Derdriu after they drove the Empire out. Claude had insisted on using the Riegan Manor for one last hurrah before he departed Fódlan and the Kingdom troops turned their sights on Enbarr. 

Sylvain was content watching the party from the edge of the room, sipping his wine, until Hilda popped up next to him, smirking at him. She had forcibly taken his wineglass away, placed it down, and dragged him onto the dancefloor. 

He indulged her, spinning her under one of his arms. “Hello, Hilda.”

“Hello, Sylvain,” she teased back, stepping on his toe with enough grace that it had to have been intentional.

He led her, stepping towards her and she stepped back. “Didn’t want to steal a dance with the soon-to-be king?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know Dimitri that well. You, on the other hand,” she trailed off, her eyes glinting. 

Sylvain nodded. “Point taken.”

“You and Claude are a lot alike,” Hilda said breezily as she bumped their knees together. 

Sylvain’s gaze flitted across the room to the newly-former Alliance leader. He had somehow convinced Ingrid to dance with him and jealousy coiled in Sylvain's stomach. He tore his eyes from the pair and looked back at his own dance partner.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied coolly. 

Hilda rolled her eyes. “Yes, you do.” She inclined her chin. “You hide behind half-truths and easy smiles and expect everyone to take that at face value.” Her grip on his hand tightened until it was almost uncomfortable. “It’s the coward’s coping mechanism.”  
  
Sylvain couldn’t really dispute her argument. “Maybe so,” he conceded. 

The music came to a halt and the dance was concluded. Hilda dropped his hands and gave him a sweet smile. “Lovely to see you as always,” she said before she strode away, her long hair swinging behind her. 

Sylvain watched her go for a minute until footsteps approached him from behind. 

“She’s something else, isn’t she?” Claude said cheerfully. 

Sylvain turned and found Claude standing right behind him, grinning. Sylvain shifted towards the edge of the dance floor and Claude followed him. 

“Devious is a word for it,” Sylvain offered. 

Claude laughed. “Definitely. I like to think I rubbed off on her after all these years.”

Sylvain leaned against the wall and let his eyes skim over the crowd of soldiers, Alliance and Kingdom, mingling and celebrating a victory. “Why did you suggest a party?” Sylvain asked suddenly. “Technically, our best option would have been to march right back to the Great Bridge to maintain our momentum.”  
  
Claude smirked. “I knew there was a reason she kept you around. And, well, I think some of you needed this.” His gaze darted noticeably to where Dimitri was chatting with Byleth and Judith in one corner of the room. “I don’t know everything that happened between him and El or what happened when he was young, but I know that no good would have come to your side if you had kept your march going and he had driven himself into the ground.”

Sylvain studied Dimitri. He was holding himself with all the courtly poise he had demonstrated as a young prince, but there was an edge of weariness about his stance too. “So you’re giving Dimitri a break,” he said. 

Claude shrugged. “And Teach. She’s not unstoppable.” Claude turned back to him. “I never put much stock in Crests or statuses. I’m sorry about your family, Sylvain, and I’m sorry for what these systems did to them.”

Sylvain tensed and narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about my family?”  
  
Claude’s lips twitched. “Not a lot,” he said cryptically. “Only that you shouldn’t bear that burden alone forever.”

He turned his head and Sylvain followed his gaze to where Ingrid was chatting with Annette, smiling widely. Sylvain’s frown loosened as he watched her. She seemed lighter here, in Derdriu, than she had been since Glenn died. It was a combination of retaking the capital, reuniting with old friends, and having a chance to relax a little that seemed to have lessened the weight that she carried on her shoulders. 

With a start, Sylvain realized that he felt lighter too. Somehow the oppressive self-hatred he had been carrying with him since he was a child had lifted, just a bit. 

He looked back at Claude, furrowing his eyebrows. “I don’t get you.”  
  
Claude smirked again and patted his shoulder. “That’s kind of the point.”

* * *

“Sylvain,” Dimitri said, placing a hand on his shoulder. 

Sylvain startled out of his reverie and turned to face his friend, plastering a smile on his face. “Your Majesty.”

Dimitri shifted at the title. “I am not king yet,” he said uncertainly. 

Sylvain shrugged, dislodging Dimitri’s hand. “You will be,” he assured. His gaze darted back to Merceus where it stood ahead of them. 

They had pitched camp close enough that they could comfortably march on the fort the next day, but also have a place to return to should the fort not be a satisfactory place to house their troops for the time being. Red banners waved in the wind on the drum towers at the corners of the walls surrounding the fort. 

“Tomorrow they’ll be flying blue,” Sylvain said firmly. 

Dimitri crossed his arms. “You really think so? I was not sure that the head-on assault was the best plan after all.”  
  
Sylvain clapped his own hand on Dimitri’s shoulder. “It’s our only option: you heard Gilbert and the Professor.”

Dimitri sighed. “I suppose.” He looked back at the camp behind him and Sylvain picked up on the fear in his body language. “I don’t want to create more unnecessary risk for any of you.” He dropped his head, hanging it in shame. “I know you already followed me beyond where I could ever ask you to and you’ve seen me as no one ever should.”

Sylvain tightened his grip on Dimitri’s shoulder. “Dimitri,” he said firmly, “we would not have followed you here if we did not believe in what we were fighting for. We never stopped believing you’d come back to us.”  
  
Dimitri touched Sylvain’s hand. “That’s probably not true,” he pointed out. “But, Sylvain, I thank you. For helping Felix and for helping Byleth and for your father stepping into Rodrigue’s shoes.”

Sylvain’s expression tightened at the mention of his father, but he nodded. “Just,” he paused, “don’t let it go to waste. Make it worth it.”

Dimitri nodded, pride blazing in his good eye. “I intend to.”  
  
Sylvain nodded and withdrew his hand. “It’s nice for us to have a head again,” he said before he turned and walked back towards the camp. 

* * *

His wyvern was dead. His ribs were on fire and he was pretty sure his leg was broken. His battalion was scattered and hurt and Sylvain was outnumbered.  
  
He shifted more weight onto his good leg and tightened his grip on the Lance of Ruin and grinned sharply at his opponents. “Long time no see,” he said stiffly. 

“I guess so,” Caspar called back, grinning. He hefted his own axe. “Too bad you’re dying here.”

The scrapes and gashes he had inflicted on Caspar had all been healed up, courtesy of Linhardt, who stood just behind his friend, his expression stony. Linhardt had also been the one to bring Sylvain down with a well-placed Excalibur, a spell Annette had shown Sylvain once while demonstrating its devastating effect on fliers. 

“I’m not dead yet,” Sylvain replied. 

Caspar charged. Sylvain barely caught the first blow on the shaft of his lance, deflecting it to the side. He almost collapsed immediately, having to shift weight onto his bad leg. He jabbed with the Lance of Ruin, but Caspar neatly blocked with the head of his axe, before using the block’s momentum to catch Sylvain in the arm. Caspar raised his axe to swing down again, but a strong burst of wind blew him back from Sylvain. 

The magic cut Sylvain as well, but Caspar definitely took the worst of the hit. Sylvain staggered, but stayed up. He turned and saw Annette charging towards him with Dedue hot on her heels. Caspar hesitated instead of advancing as Linhardt gave him a boost of white magic. 

Annette reached Sylvain’s side and held her hands up, a Sagittae glinting on her fingertips. “Caspar, Linhardt, please!” she begged. 

Linhardt’s cool expression cracked with unease. Caspar’s joy in the fighting vanished and he looked horrified for a moment. He hefted his axe again, but didn’t charge. Dedue stepped up next to Sylvain, positioning his shield so that he could guard him against physical attacks. 

Annette’s hand trembled. “Don’t let it come to this, please.” Her voice shook and Sylvain’s chest tightened. 

Caspar’s expression set in a firm line and he raised his axe. Linhardt, from behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. The healer’s eyes were on Annette and he looked calm and cool, just as he had before Caspar had tried to remove Sylvain’s head. 

White magic flowed from Linhardt’s fingers and Sylvain inhaled sharply as the gash on his arm healed and the pain in his ribs lessoned. Linhardt’s expression didn’t waver as he finished the Physic spell. 

Linhardt’s wrist twisted suddenly with a new spell and there was a pop of white magic. He and Caspar disappeared and Sylvain’s legs gave out. He cracked his head on the edge of Dedue’s shield as he went down and everything went dark. 

* * *

Sylvain came to with Mercedes leaning over him, her hand pressed against his forehead. He groaned and closed his eyes again, blocking out the light from the medical tent. He was dizzy and sore and not entirely sure what had happened. He tried to lift a hand, but gentle pressure on his wrist forced it back down against the cot. 

“Sylvain,” Mercedes said gently. “You’re okay,” she assured. 

After a second where his blood pounded in his ears so loudly he couldn’t hear anything else, he cracked his eyes open again. Mercedes was still leaning over him, a kind smile on her face. 

“You’re okay,” she said again. 

“I’m lucky,” he mumbled. “Annette saved my ass. Scared off Lin and Caspar.”

Mercedes hummed gently. “She told me. Dedue mentioned that it was an Excalibur that brought you down?”

Sylvain didn’t want to think about the powerful wind spell that had ripped him from his mount. His poor wyvern. She had been so faithful in the months since the war began. He wondered if he’d get a new mount. Wyverns were harder to raise than horses. He didn’t know if there would be one to spare for him to replace his mount. He closed his eyes, surprised to find them burning with tears.  
  
“Yeah,” he muttered. 

Mercedes brushed her hand through the hair on his forehead. “Well, I’ve done my full check-up. You’ll be just fine in a few days. I want you to take it easy on your leg, but you’ll be okay, Sylvain.”

Mercedes’s touch was warm and gentle and it reminded Sylvain of the way that his mother used to stroke his face when he was a child. Before he became afraid of Miklan and his mother grew disillusioned with the family she had married into. Before he lost his youth and he wasn’t a kid anymore. 

Mercedes’s lips skimmed over his forehead. “I’ve got you,” she murmured, sliding her other hand into one of his and squeezing it softly. 

Sylvain felt tears roll down his cheeks and he stubbornly kept his eyes shut. He didn’t speak because he was afraid his voice would break, but he squeezed Mercedes’s hand back. 

“Yeah,” he breathed out slowly when he could trust himself to speak again. “Thank you, Mercedes.”

* * *

They marched towards Enbarr. Dimitri and Byleth led on; the army’s head and heart moving as one. 

Sylvain flew beside Ingrid on a new mount and allowed himself to dream of what kind of future awaited them on the other side of the war. 

* * *

“Felix!” he yelled, jogging towards him.

Felix paused, turning. His expression was grave and his hand hovered over the hilt of his sword. Sylvain didn’t hesitate and threw his arms around his friend, hugging him close. To his surprise, Felix’s arms snapped around him too and they hugged fiercely. 

Sylvain laughed weakly and clutched at Felix’s armour. “Don’t die on me, Fe.”

“After you, you reckless son of a bitch,” Felix replied gruffly. 

Sylvain drew back but kept both of his hands firmly gripping Felix’s shoulders. “I think we can both agree that my father’s the bitch, not my mom.”

Felix grabbed Sylvain’s wrist. “You’re not him,” he said, his voice hard. “You won’t be him, Sylvain.”

Sylvain closed his eyes. “I’m trying,” he said, his voice cracking. “We have to win this one, Fe. For everything we’ve lost and for everything we stand to lose.”

“Then mount up, you idiot,” Felix replied sharply. 

His grip tightened on Sylvain’s wrist to the point of discomfort. Felix looked meaningfully up at the sky and Sylvain did too, eyeing the Galatea Pegasus Corps that was flying above them, getting ready to spearhead the assault on Enbarr. Sylvain spotted Ingrid easily enough. She wasn’t wearing her helmet and her blonde hair was whipping in the wind around her face. He was too far away to see the expression on her face, but he saw her raise Lúin and he saw her battalion rally behind her. 

“You’d better live long enough to tell her that you love her,” Felix said fiercely. 

Sylvain’s grip on his shoulders loosened. His head spun. Ingrid was Ingrid: dedicated and compassionate and loyal and beautiful. She put up with his shit and Felix’s shit and Dimitri’s shit and she gave it right back. She looked like a war spirit surging in the sky above them and his heart thumped in his chest. 

“Promise me now,” Felix continued. "Promise me that you won’t leave her.”

“I won’t,” Sylvain replied hoarsely. “I can’t,” he finished. 

Felix hugged him again for a second before he sprung back and drew his blade, pulling Aegis off his back as well. “Then I’ll see you on the other side.”

* * *

They all came out on the other side. They were scarred and bruised and drained and hurt, but they were alive. In the Imperial Palace, Byleth and Dimitri emerged from the central throne room and a raucous cheer went up across the Alliance-Kingdom forces and the Knights of Seiros. 

Sylvain threw an arm around Leonie and Ashe and smiled as hard as he could. His side was aching and his hands were blistered from swinging his weapons, but he was alive. Nearby, he could see Felix holding Annette by the waist as her hands traced his face and chest, searching for wounds. Dedue and Mercedes stood next to each other, their fingertips barely brushing every few seconds. Petra ran up and tackled Ashe into a hug, tugging him away from Sylvain. Leonie pinched Sylvain and ducked out from under his arm, heading towards Lorenz, who she gave a swift, affectionate punch to the shoulder. Marianne was fretting over Ignatz as Dorte nudged at both of them. 

Dorothea was holding Ingrid’s hands as the two girls laughed and chatted to each other over the cheers of the army. Sylvain’s heart pounded and Ingrid glanced towards him as if she had heard it. 

She had blood in her hair at her hairline, but her green eyes were bright and alive. She smiled at him and Sylvain could only let out a breathy laugh as his heart somersaulted in his chest. Ingrid excused herself from Dorothea and ran towards him. 

Sylvain caught her face in his hands and her hands gripped his armour at his ribs. Ingrid’s eyes were smiling as Sylvain ran his thumb over her cheek.

“We made it,” he said to her. The words disappeared into the sounds of celebration, but Ingrid still smiled at him. 

“We _did_ it,” Ingrid corrected, practically having to shout so that he could hear her words. 

Sylvain pressed his forehead to hers and slid his arms around her neck, hugging her properly. It wasn’t a comfortable position with both of them still wearing their full battle armour, but he could feel her fingers digging into the gaps in his armour. 

She finally pulled back, her hand rising to his face as she touched a scar that lingered on his jaw from a battle Sylvain didn’t even remember. “We can go home now,” Ingrid said, sounding excited. 

Sylvain’s stomach sank like a rock. Where was his home now? Where did he go? Did he return to Garreg Mach with the knights? Did he follow Dimitri to Fhirdiad? Did he return to Margravate Gautier to the walls that had trapped him his whole life?  
  
His expression must have twisted because Ingrid’s smile dropped. “Sylvain.”

He couldn’t breathe. His stomach turned and his throat burned. His hands shook and his vision blurred and he stumbled. Ingrid grabbed him by the straps of his armour, her eyes widening in shock. 

“Sylvain!” she cried out, trying to hold him up as his entire body revolted against his consciousness. 

A second set of hands grabbed him and together, Ingrid and the other person maneuvered him through the crowd onto a balcony. The fresh air burned, but Sylvain planted his hands on the railing and took deep, rattling breaths to try and calm himself. Dimly, he could hear voices behind him: Ingrid and another woman. The blood rushing in his ears slowly faded and he recognized Dorothea’s gentle tone. 

“He’s having a panic attack,” the songstress murmured. “Did you say something that might have set him off?”

Ingrid didn’t reply to Dorothea, but he heard her inhale sharply. Sylvain kept his eyes locked on a point in the courtyard below him, his hands tightening on the railing until his knuckles were bone-white. A hand touched his elbow and then slid down to cover his hand, massaging it gently. 

He managed to turn his gaze to Ingrid. She lifted her other hand to touch his cheek and wiped away a tear that had slipped out without him noticing. Dorothea’s shoes clicked as she retreated back inside, leaving them alone. 

“Sylvain,” Ingrid breathed slowly. “We’re okay. We’re okay.” He exhaled slowly. Ingrid nodded reassuringly. “Can you breathe with me?”

She pulled his head down until it pressed against the top of her chest and he could feel the rise and fall of her breaths against his ear. He copied her deep breaths until he was breathing normally again. 

Shame flooded him and he pulled back, looking away. Ingrid turned his face back towards her and he didn’t see any disappointment or frustration in her gaze, just patience and warmth. 

“You back with me?” she asked quietly. 

Sylvain laughed weakly. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. 

“You’re worried about going home,” Ingrid said, ignoring his apology. “That’s what it is, right?”

“You know me so well.”

“I’m scared too,” she confessed. “I don’t know how I’m going to face my father after everything that I did during the war.” Pain flickered in her expression and Sylvain brought a hand up to mirror her, cupping her cheek. 

“I can’t go back to my father, Ing,” he said quietly. “I can’t go play perfect child and take a perfect wife and have a group of perfect, Crest-bearing children. I can’t go back to murdering every man who steps foot over the Sreng border.”

“You could go with Dimitri,” she suggested. 

The look on her face told him that she knew that wasn’t an option just as well as he did. He was the heir to one of the most influential Kingdom Houses and they had just won a 5-year long war. There was rebuilding to do and House Gautier would need an heir to lead the restoration efforts. 

“I have to go back to him,” Sylvain said. “It’s my duty. I’ll,” he paused, reigning in the bitterness in his tone, “figure it out.”

“Come to Galatea with me first,” Ingrid said suddenly. “Then I’ll come to Gautier with you.”

Sylvain paused. What she was proposing sounded dangerously like something much more than a friend’s comforting presence. His heart stuttered in his chest. 

“Ingrid,” he said quietly.

She winced. “That was not how I intended to say that.”  
  
He blinked. 

She laughed faintly and ran her thumb across his cheek again. “Come home with me. Then I’ll come home with you.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?” he pressed, letting a bit of playfulness creep into his voice.

Ingrid’s cheeks flushed and her lips parted. The lead in his stomach vanished suddenly and a smile crept up on his face. He settled his hand at the junction of her jaw and smiled more broadly at her. 

“I thought that would be my job, once all of this was over,” he said lightly. 

Ingrid’s mouth slammed shut and her green eyes got wide. “Sylvain.”

“I love you, Ing. Let me come home with you and then you can come home with me.”

“Okay,” she breathed. 

He bent his neck and kissed her. Her hand slid down and her arm tucked around his neck, pulling him in close. She smelled like sweat and iron and horse, but she was warm and solid against him. He pressed his lips against hers more firmly and she parted her lips in a gasp. He drank her in like he was drowning until she was the only thing in his senses, utterly consuming him.  
  
She broke away, inhaling sharply. Her face was flushed and she opened her mouth to say something when the balcony door behind them banged open. Ingrid tried to draw away from him, but Sylvain looped an arm around her and didn’t let her retreat. 

Felix stood in the doorway behind them, a faint blush on his cheeks, and he was holding Annette’s hand. The redhead was smiling at them and Felix was trying and failing to conceal a smirk. 

“If you two are done, we have a victory to celebrate,” he called dryly. 

Sylvain squeezed Ingrid’s waist and smiled at her. “Yeah,” he replied, “we’re coming.”


End file.
